Bullying appears to be more prevalent now than in past generations. This may or may not be the case but instigators have gone to such extremes that victims have taken their own lives. One thing is for certain: the media is providing more evidence of this torment than ever before.
A particular case of bullying that has stayed with me involved 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, who moved from Ireland with her family to South Hadley, Mass. A number of high school boys found her attractive, whether it was based on her being the new girl, or for other reasons entirely. But it goes without saying that high school girls can be catty, and the interest the boys had in Prince made the other girls jealous. This
jealousy was the backbone behind endless torment Prince suffered and ultimately the cause of her devastating decision to commit suicide.
The bullying of Prince should have been nipped in the bud. No individual should feel so alone that they lose passion for living. According to the Boston Herald, Prince would occasionally be bullied in front of school staff who never did anything to intervene or stop the torment. Students vulnerable to torment may not be persistent at defending themselves and adults deterring from the defense of students may be as much to blame as the individuals responsible for bullying in itself.
The Boston Herald also claims nine teenagers were charged with the criminal activity of "cyber bullying." Now someone doesn't have to be a genius to conclude that Prince was tormented both on and off campus. The Merriam- Webster Dictionary defines cyber bullying as what is often an "anonymous electronic posting of mean-spirited messages." It seems that while Prince's tormentors outwardly targeted her in front of staff, many did not have the guts to identify themselves online.
Bullies within the academic environment target my relative. Like Prince, my relative was a new student at school and garnered attention for simply being new. Sometimes fellow students let their egos get the best of them, and didn't adjust well to having attention taken from them. Jealousy is never a good thing, and while students worry about protecting their reputations, they selfishly destroy the reputation of someone who has yet to build one.
Thus, we are back to the whole nipping it in the bud scenario. Fortunately, the parents of my relative do not tolerate any kind of bullying. It is not as though my relative looks for trouble at school, but rather the trouble finds him. A meeting with the principal and vice principal did quiet things down to an extent, but there was still an individual, who couldn't seem to separate him or herself from my relative.
Juvenile behavior specialist Dr. Carl Bell attributes bullying to the fact that a human does not get frontal lobes, applying judgment, wisdom, and thinking to the brain, until age 26. Bell feels this is the reason behind students not being able to accept differences amongst peers.
Of course, science has something to do with it, but I feel bullying is a cry for help on part of the instigator(s), because they may not be getting attention from the two sources they desire attention from the most: parents and friends.
Prince's case is one of the most extreme I've heard. This puts things into perspective, because I'm more aware of how far some tormenting can go to. I am relieved my relative's parents have taken the initiative to put an end to the bullying and have let their child know that they are not alone.
If adults are willing to take initiative, then there's always a solution to bullying. Mature adults are ultimately the individuals with capabilities to tackle bullying, not those being tormented and feeling at their wits end. As far as I am concerned, that adult is just as at fault as the bullies doing the tormenting in the first place. Any adult who witnesses torment and does little-to-nothing to intervene should be ashamed.
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